Knife Edge [Daryl Dixon]

Chapter Eighteen - Days Dividing (2/2)

     Hindsight was 20/20, and cruel. Its snares lay in wait throughout the prison, ready to entangle the wary and unwitting alike. 

Daryl needed the world to leave him alone for five minutes, two minutes even, but now that it was his turn to snatch a few hours of what passed for sleep these days, Sarah was nowhere to be found. She wasn't in the armory in B Block. It was stripped already. Not the infirmary. Ditto. His mood sliding from sour to curdled, he trudged around the corner into C Block.

Where he faltered to a stop, and not because Sarah wasn't here either.

During the day, he could pretend this wasn't the place where he lived. The blood spattered grungy walls were whitewashed, bright bedding replaced the gray blankets in the cells, and rugs dotted the concrete floor. Now the gathering dusk was stripping away the window dressing it allowed the two rows of cells down one wall, linked by a metal staircase to shine through. 

They were the block's bare bones and the sight of them brought back a night from before. 

Beth was sitting in the middle of the floor, singing something about, if you share my bed, you share my name.  He was leaning against the cells talking to Hershel and Rick about the Governor, and while they talked, Merle was drawn in by Beth's clear voice to stand where Daryl now stood.

If wishes were horses... If he knew what was coming, he would have gathered them all together, there and then, and run. They fended the Governor off a time or two, but he got in eventually, pulling the house down around him as he came. 

Yet, long after he thought it destroyed and abandoned, here was the prison, and he wasn't the only one caught in its snares. Dwight sat in a cell, his eyes open but as empty as the lamplight he stared into. 

Sherry wasn't here, and no-one had heard of her. 

Daryl turned away. Some miseries don't like company, and what could he say anyway? Dwight lost Sherry the day he called himself Negan.

Cindy thumped down the metal steps from the upper floor. Everything about her screamed heavy and tired. The way she pushed her hair back to reveal a face bruised with crying. The way she lifted and dropped her legs.

Just like Siddiq when he stepped down from Sarah's RV that afternoon. Blood stains on his sagging hands, drops glistening on his sneakers.

'I'm sorry,' he said, and Daryl's heart began to beat like there was someone to fight. As if sheer effort could stop Siddiq going on, ...lost too much blood... the bullet severed her spinal chord...

Daryl knew it, had known the instant Tara shouted for help. That kind of panic brought a timbre of its own, but knowing didn't stop a pain shooting through his chest. Rosita had died, and the group, which had waited together, by turns hopeful and grim, was flipped on its head.  

Rick rocked back a step almost bumping into Michonne. Tara made a high-pitched sound, and Aaron wrapped his arms around her, engulfing her in kindness and a rustle of his jacket, 'I'm so sorry, Tara.'

Kyle rushed to Siddiq, fumbling for his arm in his haste, 'What about Bennett?'

Soft yet cautious, Siddiq answered, 'Helen's working on him. The damage is mostly to his hip but we're doing all....' 

Swamped, Daryl tried to take it in but the words, Rosita's dead. She's dead, kept overlapping in his mind... Until Rick span on his heel and strode away.  

'Rick!' Michonne called, going after him, the worry in her tone getting Daryl moving too, but Rick wouldn't or couldn't be stopped. His long legs covered the ground fast, only stopping when he reached A Block. Where the families were now locked in the cells the prisoners vacated.